Civil Society and Women’s Organising in Turkey: From PhD to Book

Written by Asuman Özgür Keysan, part-time Lecturer in the Gender and Women’s Studies Programme, Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and Strathclyde alumnus (PhD, School of Government and Public Policy 2015)

Turning a PhD thesis into a book is as hard as it is rewarding. When I first held my new book, Activism and Women’s NGOs in Turkey: Civil Society, Feminism and Politics, I felt very emotional. I remembered the joy, pain, and effort that was integral to the research and writing processes, and the long and thrilling conversations with my supervisor and PhD mates that made this book possible. In this blog post, I reflect on the main arguments of the book and their wider relevance.

Cover of Women's NGOs in Turkey (2019)

With a focus on the Turkish context in 2012, the book examines the debate on the relationship between civil society and feminism, and identifies how the voices of women activists in Turkey contribute to the meaning(s) of civil society and/or produce alternative understandings to the dominant neoliberal and gendered view of civil society. Using feminist critical discourse analysis as my guide and method of interpretation, I interviewed forty-one activists from ten different women’s organisations including Kemalist[1], Islamist[2], Kurdish, feminist and anti-capitalist organisations[3], and analysed documents produced by each group. I was curious to find out how women activists interpreted ‘civil society’ and how they understood their activism in relation to the sites of civil society in Turkey.

It helps to pause and reflect on the received wisdom about ‘civil society’. According to the liberal tradition, civil society is a space of plurality beyond both family and state. The concept is also central to neoliberalism, which prioritizes market-oriented policies and rolling back the state. Neoliberals suggest that the restriction of civil society by the state should be lifted and the ‘entrepreneurial potential’ of civil society be allowed to flourish.[4] One implication of this logic is that the developmental and welfare state shrinks, and key state responsibilities are delegated to civil society through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This paints NGOs as apolitical by virtue of their participation in the voluntary and non-profit sector. Consequently, this view ultimately conceals oppressive bourgeois characteristics of capitalist society and the fact that NGOs come to perform many of the functions formally assigned to the state.[5]

The Socialist Feminist Collective, or SFK, one of the groups in my study. Source: blog post by member Selin Çağatay, https://www.sosyalistfeministkolektif.org/english/challenging-conservative-neoliberalism-in-turkey-the-socialist-feminist-collective/

Now, from a feminist perspective, the neoliberal definition of civil society is not only classed, it is also gendered, built on foundations which exclude women from public-political life. In light of this male dominated view of civil society, I wanted to find out what women activists thought about, and how they participated in, civil society. What emerged from the interviews was that members of women’s organisations in Turkey articulate diverse discourses of civil society; that these discourses cut across different organisations in ways that belie what are often seen as fundamental ideological differences in the Turkish context. More importantly, these discourses show that women’s activists in Turkey do not passively reproduce dominant views of civil society, even if many cling to it as a normative ideal; and that there is evidence of important critiques of and/or resistance to civil society, and of its outright rejection, meriting wider attention amongst activists and analysts.

So, my book demonstrates that even if there are significant differences in their approaches and ideas, women’s organisations can play a key role in challenging gendered and neoliberal views and practices in civil society. I suggest that these challenges ultimately feed into women’s emancipation in Turkey.

In the book, I also make sense of women’s activism in Turkey by considering the impact of the country’s relationship to the European Union (EU). Turkey has participated in Community Programmes since being granted candidate country status at the Helsinki Summit (1999), a development which has had profound implications for women’s organising.  The candidacy of Turkey to the EU has been fundamental to the way civil society has been democratised. Since 1999, considerable political attention has been given to the reforms necessary to meet the political dimensions of the EU’s Copenhagen Criteria. The ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party)[6] government has also supported EU-initiated reforms such as revisions of the Penal Code, Civil Code, Press Law and the diversification of NGOs.  The backing of the AKP government(s) in the 2000s for EU candidacy thus provided women’s organizations a ground from which to bargain with the government in order to improve women’s human rights in the country, with the collaboration of Islamist, Kemalist, feminist and Kurdish women’s organizations.[7]

Turkish Women march for International Women’s Day 2018. 

Source: TIME, Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icfSVHi6f88  

Worryingly, since 2011, these reforms have hit a brick wall and in recent times the AKPs promise of a democratic transition in the country has become hollow. The failed coup attempt in 2016 and the regime change to presidentialism have contributed to the consolidation of an authoritarian approach to politics. The impact of these developments on Turkish civil society and women’s organising have been severe. With a backlash against women’s legal rights taking hold, women’s organisations are now rethinking strategy and aims. They are also fearful of the state’s co-optation with the pro-government and Islamist women’s organisations and marginalization of others.[8] Most of the marginalised organisations are now experiencing a degree of insecurity and silencing, shifting away from advocacy to service provision, or closing down altogether.

In my mind, today’s picture is much gloomier compared to that of 2012, when I conducted the research for my book while a student at Strathclyde. It seems to me that, at present, the space for women’s activists to challenge gendered and neoliberal views and practices in civil society has been seriously restricted by state regulations.[9] There is an urgent need to research the implications of the current changes in Turkish civil society in general, and for women’s organising in particular. These changes, which have occurred in only a few years, serve as a reminder to feminists that opening up civil society to new voices and women’s activism can never be taken for granted.

Asuman’s book, Activism and Women’s NGOs in Turkey: Civil Society, Feminism and Politics, was published by Bloomsbury press on 28 November.

Notes

1. In the early years of the Republican period, the official political ideology was Kemalism, named after Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. The philosophy of Kemalism consisted of ‘Republicanism, nationalism, populism, secularism, etatism and devrimcilik (inkilâpçilik)’, and these key ideas were to provide guidance for Turkish civilization (Kili, S. (1980) ‘Kemalism in Contemporary Turkey’. International Political Science Review, 1(3), p.387).

2. Here Islamist refers to an ‘heterogeneous group who prioritize shaping their lives according to Islamic dictates and are vocal on this choice’ (Arat, Y. (2016) ‘Islamist Women and Feminist Concerns in Contemporary Turkey’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 37(3), p.126).

3. The selected organisations are TKB and TÜKD (Kemalist groups from Ankara), AKDER and BKP (Islamic organisations from İstanbul and Ankara respectively), KAMER and SELİS (Kurdish groups from Diyarbakır), İstanbul feminists KA-DER and their Ankara counterparts US, and finally the anti-capitalist SFK (Ankara) and AMARGİ (İstanbul).

4. Beckmann, B. (1993), ‘The Liberation of Civil Society: Neo- Liberal Ideology and Political Theory’, Review of African Political Economy, 58, pp. 20-33.

5. Kaldor, M. (2003) Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Cambridge: Polity Press.

6. AKP is the political party that came to power in Turkey in the general elections of 2002. The victory of AKP in the last four general elections (2002, 2007, 2011 and 2016), with an increasing share of the vote, has enabled the party to set the agenda for Turkish politics during the 2000s and beyond. Since 2002, the Party has established single-party governments. What makes the AKP’s power unique in the Turkish case is its endeavour to integrate not only conservative and Islamic values but also a neoliberal programme into political discourse and practice.

7. Coşar, S. & Onbaşı, F. G. (2008) ‘Womenʼs Movement in Turkey at a Crossroads: From Women’s Rights Advocacy to Feminism’, South European Society and Politics, 13(3), pp.325-344.

8. See Doyle, J. D. (2017) ‘Government Co-option of Civil Society: Exploring the AKP’s Role within Turkish Women’s CSOs’, Democratization, pp.1-19; Negron-Gonzales, M. (2016) ‘The Feminist Movement during the AKP Era in Turkey: Challenges and Opportunities’, Middle Eastern Studies, 52(2), pp.198-214.

9. For more discussion on how the government’s policies have shaped gender politics in Turkey recently, see Diner, Ç. (2018) ‘Gender Politics and GONGOs in Turkey’, Turkish Policy Quarterly, 16(4), 101-108, available online here.